il Principe

The Prince

The Prince based on the treatise by Niccolò Machiavelli, published 1532 in Florence Italy

I’ve wanted to make a design for the prince for a few years now but i only started to work on it in January 2019, The aim was very much to compare Machiavelli ideas to a game of chess, using the Rook piece, as its the most tower like, as in rising to the top with the help of Machiavelli’s treatise.

I’ve also enjoyed the work of Giorgio de Chirico, an Italian artist associated with the Florence, espically with his metaphysical town square series, the series features many towers, dramatically lit with long shadows, lone figures and flags, I leaned heavily in to this vibe and even used a figure from his 1960 painting “Piazza d'Italia" as the figure in the final design.

The Rook tower features the Fleur-de-lis which a key symbol of Florence, and illuminates the scene.

I had the main idea from the outset but the final composition and lighting elements went through many changes, I attempted to add in a bunch of other towers, more flags, clouds and a variety of different symbols but i eventually pulled it back to this final version.

The regular edition was pre-planned and then the two small edition variants were experiments i made when they were screenprinted.

These are on sale now

Regular - Blue2 colour screenprint on Gfsmith colourplan 270gsm18”x24”Edition of 20Initialled and numbered on the front, stamped and signed on the back

Variant - Red2 colour screenprint on Gfsmith colourplan 270gsm18”x24”Edition of 2Initialled and numbered on the front, stamped and signed on the back

Variant - White 2 colour screenprint on Gfsmith colourplan 270gsm18”x24”Edition of 2Initialled and numbered on the front, stamped and signed on the back